Lansing Community College's Equity Center advances organizational, institutional, and systemic equity within the LCC community through shaping College policies and public engagement. Driven by the Equity Action Plan, the work of the Equity Center is focused squarely on addressing racial injustice collegewide. Our policy work shapes the curriculum and program designs to measurably improve the outcomes of our students, particularly BIPOC and/or from other marginalized populations. By providing effective training, the Equity Center fosters inclusivity and equity by creating guided expectations around student and employee orientations in DEI. The Equity Center's intra-departmental collaborations address structural inequities by establishing changes in the hiring and recruitment processes, especially for faculty. In partnership with the LCC Police Department, the Equity Center ensures fairness in law enforcement procedures, policies, and behaviors.
Mission
The Equity Center's Mission is to increase diversity, promote equity, and foster inclusion within the LCC community.
Initiatives
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Beyond the Book
Beyond the Book is focused on embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through exploring books with themes related to gender and self-identity, cultural perspectives, accessibility, advocacy, and/or racial inequity, while fostering a greater sense of community.
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Equity Leaders for Inclusion
(ELI) are employees who serve as the point of contact for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts within every LCC unit or department. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion will ensure ELIs receive appropriate training to serve in this capacity.
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Inclusion Advocates (IA)
The primary focus of the Inclusion Advocates Program is to promote diversity and inclusion by mitigating bias on Lansing Community College Search Committees.
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Cultural Awareness 365 Committees
Lansing Community College provides high-quality education ensuring that all students successfully complete their educational goals while developing life skills necessary for them to enrich and support themselves, their families, and their community as engaged global citizens.
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We're Better Than That
The "We're better than THAT" campaign will educate LCC law enforcement professionals, students, faculty and staff on ways to approach difficult conversations on divisive topics and to stop hate speech and racism in our community.
What is Equity
The ongoing practice of recognizing and eliminating barriers and bias within procedures, processes, and distribution of resources in a structure or system. Specifically, equity is actively working to ensure full participation across cultural and circumstance differences by redressing the exclusion of historically underrepresented groups in the dominant society.
Equity is critical in achieving parity in the educational outcomes of our students, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, or ability status. Beyond issues of access, outcomes of students, faculty, and staff from marginalized statuses are positioned at the forefront of the Equity Center's focus.
Equality vs Equity
Equality refers to giving everyone the exact same resources, whereas equity involves distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients. Equality is also defined as treating everyone the same and giving everyone access to the same opportunities. While equality has become tantamount with "leveling the playing field," equity should be understood as providing resources and access for "those who need it."
